


The Eternal Footman

by Poetry



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M, POV Original Character, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-15
Updated: 2010-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-06 07:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eternal Footman

**Author's Note:**

> A giftfic for [](http://shanaandkunelai.livejournal.com/profile)[**shanaandkunelai**](http://shanaandkunelai.livejournal.com/), who asked me to turn a very odd Torchwood dream I had into a fic. Hope you enjoy it, and a belated happy birthday to you. Thanks to [](http://canaana.livejournal.com/profile)[**canaana**](http://canaana.livejournal.com/) for the beta.

I was walking the corridors, of an evening.

I always walk the corridors, of an evening, morning, and afternoon. I also walk the forest paths, the low roads, the secret places under the streets. But it is only in these corridors that I am known for what I am.

The doors along the corridors bear no signs. Those who belong here know exactly where they're going. There are no clocks on the walls; the management knows that clocks tell white lies at best. I can't even be sure what I would see, were I to look at one.

I was walking the corridors of an evening when I saw a door left ajar. I peered inside the room and saw the quality of the light shift. The lamplight was reassuringly dim and red, so unlike the fluorescent starkness of the corridors. The interior design seemed intent on taking the edges off things: rugs softening the linoleum, tan wallpaper lining the grim walls, trinkets placed along the shelves to take up space more than anything else.

At first, I couldn't understand for whom the reassurance was meant. Then I saw Manager talking to a strange man and I knew. Strangers only come here for one reason. I stood in the doorway, knowing that only Manager would be aware of my presence. Management changes every time I visit, but I always know it when I see it; I can see the timelines orbiting Manager in lazy spirals.

The stranger's timelines were blinding to see; they danced tarantellas around him. It took a few moments for his physical appearance to register in the confusion. The man was buttoned-down, tucked in, his tie pin-straight under his sharply creased waistcoat. Even the blue of his eyes seemed like it might have been ironed out and specially worn for the occasion. "The problem seems to be affecting only the Hub," the man said, the gentle lilt of his vowels a counterpoint to the dizzying oscillation of his timelines. "The mainframe computer's turned into a supercomputer from the 43rd century, and the coffeemaker became some sort of steampunk…contraption."

"I can fix the problem." Manager's amber eyes flicked toward me almost imperceptibly. "Or I might know someone who can."

"How?" The evenness in the stranger's voice was another carefully cultivated façade.

Manager tilted his head so that his long black hair fell over one eye. "What would happen if a time traveler were to go back in time and prevent her birth?"

The stranger frowned. "She'd just disappear, I suppose."

"Yes, but why did she disappear? There must be a reason, and if she no longer exists, the cause of that effect is gone." Manager leaned forward on his little stool. "The time traveler disappears, but the desire remains. Without that desire to change time, none of it could have happened. The desire reverberates through time, waiting for the chance to change it. It waits even now." His gaze flicked toward me again. I would have glowered if I could. I don't like to be reminded. It takes one kind of self-loathing to commit suicide, but another, much deeper kind to erase one's own existence altogether. I could feel it welling up within me once more, like bile. If I had known what would be left of me when I removed myself from time, I would have found a kinder way to put an end to my life.

"All it needs," Manager continued, "is to find the right possibility. The desire is not enough. It only has the power to tweak the tiniest variable, hoping for the greatest effect. I can't promise a good result."

The stranger didn't hesitate. "I have to try."

"You say that the temporal anomaly is affecting your branch of Torchwood only. What would you say is the center, the core of Torchwood Three?" I drew into the room as Manager spoke, waiting for Time to open up for me. These moments are my only consolation, my only fulfillment.

"Jack," the stranger answered, and the unsolid timelines filled the room with a thousand strands of spider-silk. Amidst them ran a single cord, razor-thin yet unbreakable, stretching further than even I could see. It was the line to which all the other strands were anchored. "My boss."

"Tell me a recent memory you have of him. Something you can recall as vividly as possible," said Manager. If I had had a face, I wouldn't have been able to disguise my hunger. If only he could see the worlds of possibility this man had opened for me!

The man's face grew distant, and the air seemed to shiver as he chose out a moment from all the myriads that crowded the room, unseen. "One morning, before work, he came by my flat. He told me we'd be late. There was something we had to do." One of the gossamer threads, twined around that unwavering, infinite cord, shimmered whitely. The man smiled. "I knew it wasn't Torchwood business. He tried to make it sound like it was terribly important, but I could see it. I can always see it. He just wanted me to be happy for a little while."

"We went to the SUV, and I saw the kites in the trunk. They were just those colored diamonds, the ones they make for children. I told him he was mad, that I didn't even know how to fly a kite. He just said he'd teach me, and drove to the beach. It was cold and damp, but Jack didn't stop for a moment. He showed me what to do." Suddenly, I saw it. The kite unfurled across the room in miniature, a rainbow caught in a spider's web. I could see the lead of the kite in the man's hands as he spoke, a smile playing across his face like sunlight on water. "It was utterly pointless, silly, and brilliant."

Everything was clear to me now. The threads of time formed a four-dimensional knot, and I knew which thread had to be taken away for it to unravel. Manager looked right into me, and understood. "You'll lose Jack," he said.

"What?" He pulled the spool of the kite close to his chest, as if he could keep it from floating away.

"The anomaly can be fixed, but you'll lose Jack."

The man's eyes closed, and I could see the place where his line ended, as tightly coiled around that infinite cord as it had ever been. "I'll always lose him."

"I can't tell you when it will happen, but it'll be…sooner than it might have been." Manager's voice became low and urgent. "You can't tell him, or anyone. Make your excuses."

"Just do it." I pulled the tiniest of threads, and the knot that was Torchwood Three unraveled. But somewhere along the line, a new web was woven, with that same cord at its heart. I peered at the cord a little more closely, and realized that it was a rope, the twining of many threads into one. That was what ensured that it remained unbroken forever.

I wanted to tell the man all I had seen. I wanted him to wear the knowledge of what was to come with the same dignity he expressed in his every word and action. But I have no voice in me, and I could only watch as the stranger left, the kite trailing behind him like an unspoken promise.


End file.
